Buddhism Around the Block

About a block from our apartment is a Buddhist temple called Reiun-ji.  It occurs to me that some of you might be wondering how I know it's a Buddhist temple versus a Shinto shrine.  Well, they're typically labeled as such on maps and signs but one easy way to tell is that shrines usually have torii at the entrance and temples usually do not.  So if the entrance has a torii, it's most likely (but not always) a shrine.  Temples tend to be slightly more gilded and ornate too.

This particular temple doesn't show up on all of my area maps and doesn't have much of a presence online.  I had to do some digging to find out about it.  It's not quite as happening a place as the Yushima Tenjin shrine (shown a couple of posts back).

Reiun-ji was originally built in 1691 but has been rebuilt a couple of times because of earthquakes and fire.  Apparently, it houses some scrolls and a mandala (a Buddhist painting to really oversimplify it, much more about this specific mandala at the link, second entry) that are national treasures.

the entrance from the inside, notice how there's just a somewhat ornate gate, but no torii
this indicates immediately that it's probably a temple



the temple

nobody was around, which I attribute partially
to subpar landscaping---the shrine around the
corner is a much nicer place to hang out

but it has some pretty spots